Attack on Ukrainian church prompts calls for calm

Caroline Zielinski

The Australian-Ukrainian community has branded the vandals who graffitied a Ukrainian Catholic church in western Sydney as "un-Australian" and "extremist", calling on police and state and federal governments to catch the culprits before tensions escalate throughout Australia.

The attack – which included spraying swastikas all over the church walls on Friday night – has drawn the ire of the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations, chairman Stefan Romaniw saying he was worried that what happened in Sydney “could be a start of other things to happen”.

“There are radicals all over the place, and what’s happened in Sydney is inexcusable,” Mr Romaniw said.

“We’re all very passionate about what’s happening in Ukraine, but the tensions are over there, and in terms of the community here we need to live in harmony. There are different forums where we can discuss differences in opinion.”

The federation warned vandals that “Australians do not respond to threats or acts of violence or vandalism”, and that “these kinds of acts are un-Australian and very much fly in the face of the strong multicultural policies we have in Australia”.

Mr Romaniw said it was important that the Ukrainian and broader community reacted “with calm and responsibility”.

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“I’ve been in touch with the Sydney community, who are working towards cleaning up the graffiti as we speak,” he said.

“People are obviously angry, but at the same time we have called for calm and gotten that.

“It’s a sign of our leadership that for 65 years the Ukrainian community has played by these rules.”